


the ups and the downs

by finalizer



Series: home [1]
Category: Villains Series - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Established Relationship, Found Family, Gen, Humor, Sickfic, Slice of Life, post-Vengeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-09 23:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20518181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finalizer/pseuds/finalizer
Summary: "I can’t be sick," Sydney said. "We were supposed to get waffles."





	the ups and the downs

**Author's Note:**

> for [fia](https://clarkesyd.tumblr.com)

The odds of Victor surviving the year were about half and half. 

The two options, which he liked to call options A and B, were that he either put his brilliant, scheming brain to good use and saved his own life or, if worse came to worst, took a deep breath and put a bullet in his head to get the whole suffering-in-agony thing over with.

He was inclined to go with option A—his ambition would be the death of him. Well, rather, the _life_ of him.

Haverty’s irritatingly temporary cure was running out and Victor’s hands refused to stop shaking, but he knew that he could not stop trying until he came up with something that would work. There was always a way out of every clusterfuck he got himself into.

And, _by god,_ he was right.

* * *

_a year and 3 months after Victor abandoned Sydney and Mitch and fucked off to wallow in self pity_

_(Sydney’s words, not his)_

_(honestly, where had she even learned to talk like that?)_

Sydney ran at the bed and leaped knees first. Her landing very nearly snapped some of Mitch’s bones; she wasn't as light as she thought she was. He grunted, half asleep, and nudged her aside as gently and patiently as he was capable of at this hour of day. He generally preferred not to be attacked first thing in the morning, before his first cup of coffee no less. 

“I thought you locked the door.”

That was Victor, whose hair stood out every which way, like he’d stuck a fork in an electrical outlet and sat there frying himself for several minutes. 

“I got up to get water later.”

“And now there's a child in our bed.”

Victor lifted his head a few inches to pull his pillow out from under himself and burrowed beneath it instead. He struggled to get comfortable for a bit and then relaxed, pleased with everything going dark and quiet for a little while longer. 

“Wha’ time’sit?” he then asked, voice muffled.

In response to which Sydney insisted, “I’m not a child,” which really didn't answer his question in the slightest. 

“Seven thirty,” Mitch supplied helpfully.

“We said eight.”

Victor could _hear_ Sydney scowling. “Yes, but if we’re supposed to be at the diner at eight, then you have to get up at seven thirty at the latest if you want to have enough time to take a shower and do all that stuff you do with your hair.”

And now Sydney could hear Victor scowling. It was because she was right and he was currently doing a speed run through all five stages of grief, wishing he could nod off for just a moment longer.

He’d spent years violently dying and un-dying, every single one of his nerves on fire. He couldn't remember getting a full night’s sleep even once in the midst of it all. 

And now, he was trying to make up for half a decade of lost time.

“I gotta side with Syd on this one,” Mitch said. “A promise is a promise. You promised waffles.”

By the time Victor peeled his eyes open—which was a feat more difficult than recovering from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, _he would know_—inelegantly stumbled to take a shower, and then nearly tripped in the process of exiting the shower, the smell of coffee from the open kitchen had already wafted steadily into the bathroom down the hall.

Victor shut off the blow dryer and took a deep breath, dizzy with how desperately he craved a cup of something strong and caffeinated. That was all; his needs were simple now.

He was more relaxed than ever—before the shitstorm with EON and Marcella, before the previous shitstorm with Eli, and the whole prison shitstorm, or the earlier shitstorm at college, and the whole superpowers shitstorm, too.

Sometimes all a man needed was to kill his arch-nemesis, overcome death itself, and establish a false identity a few minutes outside of city limits. (It wasn't quite suburban; Victor would rather die—again—than go full suburban.)

The current _quasi_-suburban setup, however, was all right. His sort-of-adopted daughter slash teenage necromancer in training was singing something off key in the living room, her undead zombie dog barking in tune, and his—Victor’s brain stopped working; he didn't want to think about this too deeply right now—his Mitch was making coffee.

When he arrived in the kitchen, however, he found Sydney sitting on one of the bar stools at the counter, suspiciously quiet. Her forehead was pressed against the cool marble and her arms were dangling loosely at her sides.

_Did your singing give you a headache?_ Victor didn’t say, because he was trying not to be as much of an asshole. 

Instead, he opted for, “What's wrong?”

Mitch handed him a plain white cup of steaming coffee. Victor had never considered marriage before but he strongly considered it now.

“Headache,” Mitch said.

“I’m dying,” Sydney corrected.

Victor refrained from doing what he usually did in these situations: numbing down the offending headache with the twist of a dial and getting back to reading or scheming or whatever he was in the mood for that particular day.

But Sydney was a kid, a miraculous one but a kid nonetheless, and ignoring symptoms of something that could be serious wasn't good parenting at all. Victor knew this, because his parents had fucked off on thousands of book tours and left him all alone, and look how he’d turned out.

He set the coffee down, but kept one hand wrapped firmly around the mug, and attempted to touch Sydney's forehead with the other. It was fairly difficult with her face smushed snugly against the countertop. 

“Syd,” he said, and she let him check her temperature.

He frowned and glanced at Mitch. “You do it. My hands are hot.”

Mitch looked at Victor. “I, too, am holding coffee,” he said, looking down at the mug of coffee he was indeed holding.

Three minutes later, when everyone’s hands had sufficiently cooled down, the unanimous verdict was that Sydney had spontaneously developed a fever. 

Victor wondered how that worked with people like them; if their immune system functioned the same way it did with everyone else. He didn't have very much experience with falling ill since that night he’d strapped himself to a metal table, minus the whole thing with his powers going on the fritz for five years and dragging him over and over into an early grave. At least it hadn't come with a stuffy nose.

“So, this isn’t great.”

Sydney made a sound. 

“You should get back to bed.”

Sydney made a louder sound.

“At least go lay down on the couch,” Victor reasoned.

“I can’t be sick. We were supposed to get waffles.”

“The waffles will still be right around the corner when you’re feeling better,” Mitch assured her.

Victor eyed him with one part jealousy (because Mitch was a functional adult, emphasis on functional, who always knew what to say) and two parts pride (because seeing how much Mitch cared for Sydney never failed to make his heart skip a beat).

“How about this—you crash on the couch with some blankets and your iPad and watch SpongeBob, or whatever people your age watch, and we’ll make our own waffles right here instead?”

“No, I want those waffles. And you can’t cook. I’ll go watch SpongeBob, though.”

The next two hours ticked by without incident.

Sydney had cocooned herself on the couch along with all the pillows and blankets she’d brought over from her bedroom, and Mitch had gone out to track down something that would bring her temperature down. She’d begrudgingly eaten a single slice of toast washed down with cocoa (“You can’t take medicine on an empty stomach,” Victor had told her, as though he were the poster boy for responsible drug use) and had eventually fallen asleep with the cartoon still playing in her lap.

Victor and Mitch were leaning back against the kitchen counter, watching her snore.

“She’ll break her neck sleeping like that,” Victor finally said.

“If I carry her to bed, she’ll wake up,” Mitch insisted.

“She has a fever, she’ll fall back asleep.”

And so Mitch picked up the sleeping girl and Victor collected her quilts and throws and pillows, and they deposited her comfortably on her bed. 

Victor went over to the window and pulled the curtains tightly closed, plugged in the iPad and set it down on the bedside table. Dol, Sydney’s ever-present shadow, trotted into the room and soundlessly curled up at the foot of her bed. He seemed to sense in that way all dogs, undead or otherwise, did that his owner was in a funk and needed some company. The bond between a resurrected being and the person who’d brought them back was unbreakable. Victor knew this from experience.

Mitch sat at the edge of the bed, arranging Sydney’s covers so that she was warm and comfortable. He pushed an errant strand of her sweaty hair away from her forehead and Victor’s heart did another _thing_.

“I don’t know the first thing about looking after sick children,” Victor said blandly, when Mitch looked up at him. 

“She needs sleep and water, maybe some chicken soup,” Mitch told him. “I don’t know. She’s like a sick adult, only smaller.”

Victor glanced back over at Sydney; she was shivering. He had done enough introspection over the last year or so to be able to admit to himself now that yes, he was worried, because yes, he loved this little girl as much as he could possibly love anything.

“I’m gonna go reheat my coffee,” he said. Admitting things to himself didn’t mean he had to say them out loud. “I’ll check in on her later.”

Later, he and Mitch were seated side by side on the couch. Victor watched as Mitch did something or another on his laptop that Victor didn’t entirely understand. Truthfully, most of what Mitch did went over his head.

He had his second coffee of the day in hand, the mug cooling. His head was drooping, leaning ever-so-slightly on Mitch’s shoulder. It was early afternoon and Victor was inexplicably tired.

He and Mitch had taken turns checking in on Sydney over the past few hours as she slept. It didn’t seem too serious; nothing that warranted a trip to the emergency room. Which was lucky, considering both Mitch and Victor were wanted fugitives and the method through which they’d acquired the girl in question was unorthodox, to say the least. To top it all off, it was decidedly too risky to file for medical insurance with falsified documents, so hospitals were not really an option; not now, not ever. 

“I thought we were laying low.”

“Are we not?” Mitch asked.

Victor jerked his chin at the screen. “That’s a government database.”

Mitch laughed to himself. “You got me there.”

Bypassing government security was best done highly caffeinated. Victor drained whatever was left in his mug, grimacing at the bitter dregs at the bottom, and got up in search of a refill, and one for Mitch as well.

“Don’t do anything too exciting without me.”

“No worries. This’ll take a while.”

Victor rinsed his mug out in the sink and gracefully flipped it in his hand before setting it down on the counter. He replaced the filter in the coffee machine and filled it up, then plucked a matching mug from the overhead cupboard for Mitch.

He pressed _brew_ and turned back towards the expanse of the living room. “What’re you looking for?”

“Records.”

“Whose?”

“The less you know the better,” Mitch answered with a grin. 

“That’s just lovely,” Victor said. “You’re keeping secrets from me in my own home.”

The use of that particular word didn't slip past either of them. _Home_ wasn’t as simple as _house_. _Home_ carried connotations.

Again, Victor banished any and all melodramatic thoughts from his mind (to be revisited later, or maybe not, depending on the mood) and figured it was a common enough turn of phrase. He didn’t need to explain himself.

“Love you, too” Mitch said, without looking up from his screen—like he’d read Victor’s mind.

Victor almost dropped the sugar bowl in his hands. He couldn't understand how confessions of affection came so easily to others. His throat felt tight as he met Mitch’s eyes from across the room, and he knew that Mitch knew that he felt the same way. He just struggled with the words.

Then the doorbell rang, because fuck romance. 

“You expecting someone?” Mitch asked.

Victor had meant to ask the same question, but didn't trust his lips to formulate coherent sentences just yet.

“No,” he finally managed. “You?”

“Not unless Waffle House does delivery.”

“You ordered?”

“No,” Mitch said.

With a swift roll of his eyes, Victor wiped his hands on one of the kitchen towels. Warily, he approached the door.

He pulled it open and promptly deflated.

June smiled at him, all teeth, no warmth. “It’s rude to keep a girl waiting."

She didn't wait for a formal invitation; she brushed past Victor and slipped inside like she was another one of their long-lost housemates.

She looked like herself, more or less, dressed in nondescript clothing with her hair tied back. It was obvious that she meant to blend in—whatever she was doing in the area had to be at least a little bit illegal.

Victor closed the door behind her and followed her to the kitchen.

“To what do we owe the pleasure,” he said flatly.

He hadn't phrased it as a question, but June answered anyway. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I was told, and I quote, that I am welcome anytime.”

“Syd?” Victor asked, with an exasperated glare.

June’s bright smile widened and she shook her head almost imperceptibly.

Victor redirected his now accusatory glare at Mitch. 

Mitch shrugged. “I was being polite.”

“Superb,” Victor concluded, and returned to the kitchen counter, where the coffee machine beeped petulantly at him. He poured two cups and hesitated.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked June pleasantly.

“I’m good.”

Relieved, Victor carefully returned to the couch, setting both mugs down on the coffee table. Mitch offered him a grateful smile as he continued clacking away at his laptop.

“Who’s here?” Sydney asked, and Victor blinked.

At some point during the last ten-to-fifteen seconds, she’d entered the room, eerily silent. When she put her mind to it, she could be invisible. Victor was impossibly proud. 

Then came the happy reunion—Sydney spotted June and launched into a lopsided run to hug her. Victor could not fathom why the two of them got along so well, especially following June's not-so-slight betrayal.

It was ages before Sydney let go, and when she did it was because she needed to sneeze, and she did so violently.

June tore her a piece of paper towel from the roll on the countertop. She looked mildly concerned.

“And what’s going on here?”

“I’m dying,” Sydney said seriously, with a sniffle. “My days are numbered.”

“How’s your head?” Victor asked from across the room. 

Sydney flashed June a cheery grin, one that juxtaposed her grim words from a moment ago and implied _wait here_, and crossed over to the couch like she’d only just noticed Victor was in the room, too. She sat on him, just to be rude, half in his lap, and said, very seriously, “Did you know that over 1,500 people died on the Titanic?”

Until now, Victor had been under the assumption that the doorbell woke her, but it seemed that she hadn't been sleeping at all, rather watching a dark documentary or reading one of the dozens of history books she so adored.

“I did not know that.”

“That’s almost as many as you’ve killed,” Sydney said, and Mitch snorted.

Victor scowled at him, the traitor, then softened his expression and faced Sydney again. 

“Are you feeling better?”

“Much.”

And then June interrupted them, because fuck family too, apparently. 

“I hate to cut your daddy-daughter bonding time short but I have a bone to pick with mister Vale. It’s important.”

Victor raised an eyebrow as if to say, _go ahead. _

“In private,” June clarified.

On principle, she and Victor did not get along. One thing they did have in common, though, was the desire to obliterate what was left of EON, and have oodles of fun doing it. Victor knew that none of them would be safe until the organization was destroyed and its top brass wiped from the face of the earth. 

And so, every once in a while, the two of them would venture out on exciting little excursions and come back with far less bullets in their clips, or smelling of smoke,or chemicals, et cetera, et cetera. Victor never talked about it because, as Mitch had so eloquently put it, the less everyone knew the better.

“I’ll be right back,” Victor told Sydney, and she rolled off him and onto Mitch. He ruffled her hair but didn't look up from the mysterious data on his screen. Whatever he was doing had to be important. 

“What are they talking about in there?” Sydney asked Mitch half an hour later, when June and Victor had yet to reemerge from the guest bedroom _slash_ office. Victor had taken his coffee with him; he was all set to continue the clandestine meeting for the next couple hours, if need be.

“Dunno. What do you think?”

“Murder,” Sydney said, with absolute certainty. “Or arson.”

Mitch looked up at her, only slightly worried at the ease with which this young girl talked about violent crime, and mirrored her content smile. Victor was a handful, as were his hobbies, but they loved and supported him anyway. Destroying EON, at least, was a sensible reason to pick up a weapon and get one’s hands dirty.

“Do you have more of that syrup?” she asked a moment later.

Mitch’s hands stilled over his keyboard and he narrowed his eyes in concern. 

“Thought you said you were feeling better.”

Sydney nodded. “Better, but not good. I need to feel good, because we have to go get waffles. My ears feel kinda hot.”

It was a reasonable enough request. 

By the time June emerged back into the living room followed by a sullen-looking Victor, Sydney had already wolfed down a bowl of soup Mitch had reheated, and half of a baguette. Her appetite was back—and so big that after all that, she insisted she was still hungry.

“I have a meeting tonight,” June said, in a voice that implied her meeting would end in blood, “but I’ll be back tomorrow morning. We need to catch up.”

The last part was directed at Sydney, who beamed with her mouth full and nodded.

June picked up an apple from the basket on the counter—it was a very domestic setup, yes—and headed towards the door. 

Mitch approached Victor and leaned down to whisper something to him, settling his hand on Victor’s waist as he talked in a gesture so genuinely affectionate that June felt compelled to look away and stare at the floorboards. Victor looked up at Mitch, pleased at whatever he’d been told, and nodded his approval. 

“I, too, will be back,” Mitch announced, and followed June out the door.

It slammed closed behind them and Sydney glared at it like it would speak to her and reveal the secrets of the universe. 

“Where’d he go?” she demanded, whirling on Victor.

He fixed her with a neutral look that betrayed nothing.

“Beats me,” he said.

“What did you and June talk about?”

“Work.”

“Who are you tracking down this time?” 

“Someone from the board of directors,” Victor answered honestly. “You wanna show me that book you were reading about the Titanic?”

“It was a Netflix documentary,” Sydney said smugly.

Victor was ashamed at himself for guessing wrong. 

“Come on, then,” she said as she hopped down from the bar stool. “There’s one on Chernobyl, too.”

Mitch returned twenty minutes later to find Victor and Sydney leaning back against the headboard of her bed, legs outstretched, Sydney’s iPad balanced on Victor’s knees. One of Victor’s arms was around her shoulders, and Sydney’s head was tucked against his chest. They wore matching expressions of morbid curiosity, and upon hearing something about _radiation burns_ in the narrator’s solemn voice, Mitch decided he didn't want to know.

He poked his head through the open door and said, “Put your horror movie on pause and come to the kitchen.”

“Just a moment,” Sydney said, just as Victor insisted, “It’s a documentary”. Neither of them could tear their eyes away from the events unfolding on the tiny screen.

That is, of course, until the sweet smell from the kitchen drifted down the hall and into the bedroom, and Sydney’s whole demeanor shifted like someone had flipped a switch. She sniffed the air and twisted around to stare at Victor with bright eyes and a disbelieving grin on her lips. He couldn't suppress the smile that crawled its way onto his face in response.

“Go on,” he said.

She catapulted herself off the bed and was out of the room before Victor even managed to sit up properly. He felt old and drained. These days, he needed more sleep than a newborn child. His recurring nightmares still haunted him, but at the very least, he was no longer dragged awake by bolts of agony tearing through him at ungodly hours in the night. So he slept, and slept, and slept. And when he didn’t, he was tired. Life was a bitch.

He slipped quietly into the kitchen and was greeted with the sight of Sydney on the verge of tears, holding two huge waffles, one in each hand. Mitch had cleverly figured that if Sydney couldn't go to the diner, the diner would come to her. It was a brilliant plan, perfectly executed.

Dol pattered out of the bedroom and past Victor, quiet as the dead. It was an apt description. Victor often forgot the dog existed, with how stealthily he crept in and out of the shadows, waking up from his constant naps and reappearing only when he smelled food or his owner’s loneliness. 

Sydney excitedly motioned at Dol to come on over, and tore off a piece of her waffle. She tossed it up and he leaped to catch it.

Victor found himself gravitating towards the scene, heavily leaning back against the counter by the fridge. It was embarrassing how desperately he craved to shut his eyes this early in the afternoon.

Mitch sidled up beside him, and spoke in a hushed tone.

“How likely is it you’ll get yourself killed this time around?”

For a man of his size, stature, and criminal record, he was visibly anxious every time Victor disappeared off on a job. Perhaps it had less to do with the illicit activities taking place, and more with the fact that Victor wasn't in the best shape to be prancing off to commit violent murder. And violent it would be—he had to send a message.

Victor didn't take his eyes off Sydney and Dol. “I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that. You’re in no position to make that promise.”

This time Victor did glance up. Mitch’s expression was startlingly serious. 

“I promise anyway,” he said.

Mitch snaked an arm around Victor’s waist and pulled him flush against his side, pressing a kiss to his temple.

Victor could feel Mitch’s fear, that foreboding dread that snuck into his mind and convinced him that one of these days Victor would come back drenched in his own blood, or worse yet, never come back at all. 

That couldn't happen. Victor wouldn't let it happen, now that he had people to come back to. But he had to see this through for _their_ sake, to protect _them_; he felt at least partially responsible for all they’d been through. And once he was done slitting throats and pulling triggers, no one would ever hurt any of them again.

“Besides,” he added, “if something goes wrong, Sydney can just resurrect me again.”

He’d spent the last thirty-something years repressing his feelings and he wasn't about to start being mushy now; not when he could diffuse the tension with a questionable remark instead. 

Mitch glared daggers at him. It was palpable in the air; Victor didn’t even have to look up. There was dark humor, and then there was Victor’s brand of dark humor. It was clear to both of them, though, that it was only a joke, that Victor would never willingly put Sydney through anything like that again.

He changed the topic before Mitch could glare a hole through his skull.

“Who were you looking for earlier?” 

There was a pause.

“Your next target,” Mitch said proudly.

It was easy to forget, sometimes, that Mitch was fairly dangerous in his own right. And as much as he pretended to oppose Victor’s murderous streak, he had a tendency to encourage—no, _enable_—him every once in a while, if only to see Victor’s racing thoughts occupied.

“Well,” he corrected himself, “the next one is whoever you’re going after with June, I’m assuming. So, the next-next one.”

“You found the Polish guy?”

“Of course I did.”

“He was in witness protection.”

“I’m not incompetent. I’ll have a dossier ready for you tomorrow.”

Victor huffed in disbelief. It was remarkable that he had this, that he had Mitch, and Sydney, and the waffle-eating dog wagging his tail on the living room floor, and that Victor regularly went out and got blood on his hands and yet they loved him anyway. His heart twisted in his chest and he considered how perfectly horrid it was for him to be moved close to tears by the knowledge that Mitch had successfully tracked down the person Victor wanted to kill next. It was sweet, in a grotesque kind of way.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Anytime,” Mitch answered.

Sydney giggled as Dol failed to snatch up her latest throw, and ended up with a scrap of waffle on top of his head. 

Victor found himself smiling—_good god,_ he did that a lot these days—in that way that made his eyes crinkle and tear ducts burn. There was nothing he wouldn't do to make sure their little girl was never caught in the crossfire again.

Mitch was still holding him close. Victor shut his eyes for a moment, and allowed himself to just _breathe_. 

“I think I’m gonna go to bed,” he said eventually; it was becoming comically difficult to keep himself upright.

Mitch hummed in acknowledgment. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

Victor wriggled loose and stepped back to appraise the sight in front of him one last time before his exhaustion shut his body down and dragged him under. Sydney was preoccupied with watching Dol eat, and Mitch was preoccupied with watching Sydney watch Dol eat.

The soft, fond huff of laughter slipped out before Victor could rewire his brain back to the _impassive asshole_ setting. 

Mitch turned to him, brow furrowed. 

“You make a pretty good dad,” Victor elaborated, as he turned to head out of the room. He couldn't face Mitch when he said it, lest he accidentally do something stupid in the process, like get down on one knee and propose. Living with feelings was dreadfully complicated. 

Mitch directed his reply towards Victor’s retreating form.

“Takes one to know one, Vic.”

**Author's Note:**

> what do you mean that's not how vengeful ended
> 
> [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/finaIizer) & [tumblr](https://tarmairons.tumblr.com)


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